“You don’t have to see something to know it’s there. We can’t see the wind, but we can feel the breeze on our faces and see the trees blowing back and forth. It is the same with the Companion.” – Madame Raphael

In “The First Escape,” the first installment of G.P. Taylor’s “Dopple Ganger Chronicles,” we meet twins Sadie and Saskia Dopple, who live at Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward Children. They are full of mischief, always getting the better of staff members and their fellow students. They do have one friend, though – Erik Morrissey Ganger, the only boy resident of the school.

One night author Muzz Elliott comes to the school and adopts Saskia, leaving Sadie behind. This greatly saddens the twins, who are extremely close.

Erik and Sadie eventually escape to look for Saskia, being chased the whole way.

This book has many interesting plot twists: talking puppets, hidden treasure, questionable identities, ghosts and the mysterious Madame Raphael, who teaches Saskia about the Companion, someone who is always with us.

The story is a fun read, being told through traditional words with illustrations, intermingled with comic strips. Sometimes I found it hard to follow the comic strip drawings, but the words in the strips made it easy to follow.